Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
on Monday May 25, 2009 @03:27PM
from the fighting-ignorance-with-lawsuits dept.

An anonymous reader writes "'Linux vendor Red Hat, and 17 other vendors, have protested a Swiss government contract given to Microsoft without any public bidding. The move exposes a wider Microsoft monopoly that European governments accept, despite their lip service for open source, according to commentators. The Red Hat group has asked a Swiss federal court to overturn a three-year contract issued to Microsoft by the Swiss Federal Bureau for Building and Logistics, to provide Windows desktops and applications, with support and maintenance, for 14M Swiss francs (£8M; $15M) each year. The contract, for 'standardized workstations,' was issued with no public bidding process, Red Hat's legal team reports in a blog — because the Swiss agency asserted there was no sufficient alternative to Microsoft products.'"

(a) Has a report from someone in their IT Department that erroneously states that they need won't work with Linux, and therefore has to be excluded from the procurement process.

or

(b) Has a report from someone in their IT Department that correctly states that they need won't work with Linux, and therefore has to be excluded from the procurement process.

Unfortunately, that's not a Microsoft Monopoly, in either case. If its (a) then their IT staff suck, not Microsoft's fault, and not making Microsoft a monopoly. If its (b) then Linux sucks for their needs, which again is not Microsoft's fault and does not make Microsoft a monopoly.

Actually, the sad part is there is probably truth in the parent.
Somebody in the procurement department either
(a) Has a report from someone in their IT Department that erroneously states that they need won't work with Linux, and therefore has to be excluded from the procurement process.
or
(b) Has a report from someone in their IT Department that correctly states that they need won't work with Linux, and therefore has to be excluded from the procurement process.
Unfortunately, that's not a Microsoft Monopoly, in either case. If its (a) then their IT staff suck, not Microsoft's fault, and not making Microsoft a monopoly. If its (b) then Linux sucks for their needs, which again is not Microsoft's fault and does not make Microsoft a monopoly.

Which is why Switzerland is being sued, not Microsoft. The summary is actually somewhat erroneous here, because this has little to do with Microsoft or its monopoly, they just happen to be the bidder here.

Most government departments have mandatory open bidding processes for procurement of everything from software to roads. If they had, in violation of these rules, given a no-bid contract to Red Hat, Microsoft could've sued the Swiss government on the exact same grounds and forced them to use a competitive bidding process. If the same process occurred in roadbuilding, and they gave a no-bid to Contractor A when Contractor B also wanted a shot to bid, Contractor B can sue. So it's true that Microsoft isn't really in the wrong here, a Swiss government agency is.

That being said, however, as to your "a" and "b" scenarios, it really doesn't matter. The way the bidding process works is that they present a set of requirements as to what the product being procured must do. Anyone who is willing to fill those requirements (either by using what they've already got or developing something new to fill them) may bid. In your "b" scenario, they would have to know not only that "Red Hat's software is currently incapable of doing something we need", but also that "Red Hat is unwilling or unable to develop that functionality." Apparently, that's not the case, since it seems Red Hat certainly does want a stab at it.

Switzerland states that only MS will do, but how can you truly know what's available without a public bid?

Indeed. But all too often, you can't even know it then. It's common practice in every government agency everywhere to "fix" a purchase or hire process in a simply way. You get together with the bidder/applicant that you want to win, and make up a set of "requirements" that are carefully tailored to have at least one item which you know each potential vendor/applicant will fail. You might include rea

It's bad either way. Even if it is true that they have something that genuinely can only be made to work with Windows as of today (and they genuinely cannot meet said Windows requirement in any way other than having Windows on all desktops), they should still open the bidding process and allow Linux vendors to quote them a price that includes fixing the problem in Linux.

It might still work out cheaper than going with Windows, and if it doesn't, then they can still go with Windows, secure in the knowledge that there has been a fair and open bidding process to justify their decision.

As for the monopoly argument, I don't see a problem with the term. If the Swiss government is automatically granting business to Microsoft without allowing any competitors to bid, then the Swiss government is indeed effectively granting Microsoft a monopoly. The market in question is a fairly small one, and the existence of the monopoly is the fault of the Swiss government rather than of Microsoft, but it appears to exist nonetheless.

The market in question is a fairly small one, and the existence of the monopoly is the fault of the Swiss government rather than of Microsoft, but it appears to exist nonetheless.

If Switzerland is anything like the US, I'd wager the market you're referring to (federal, state and local contracts) is a lot larger than you think. Maybe someone can cite some real numbers, but I'd guess it outstrips anything in the private sector.

For 10 million (or more) dollars, I'm pretty sure Red Hat could make whatever they need to work work. The biggest advantage Linux has is enterprise installations that are large enough to absorb programmer salaries into the budget, and thus can customize the entire installation for a one time cost.

Somebody in the procurement department either(a) Has a report from someone in their IT Department that erroneously states that they need won't work with Linux, and therefore has to be excluded from the procurement process.or(b) Has a report from someone in their IT Department that correctly states that they need won't work with Linux,

Regardless, they are required to put it out for tender. Even if they think only one company is capable of supplying a service, it has to go thruogh an open specification and bi

Unfortunately, that's not a Microsoft Monopoly, in either case. If its (a) then their IT staff suck, not Microsoft's fault, and not making Microsoft a monopoly. If its (b) then Linux sucks for their needs, which again is not Microsoft's fault and does not make Microsoft a monopoly.

Exactly. Or:

c) Their IT staff is really good at supporting Windows but doesn't know, nor care to learn how to support Linux. So they can replace all their IT staff or they can go with Windows.

There is still a lot of software out there that doesn't support Linux at least on the client side. For example: SAP, AutoCAD, MS Office (sucks but still the best office suite IMHO) are all Windows client only systems. Sometimes not bidding isn't picking on the vendor you don't go with, sometimes it is "I know what

Not to mention my example - my scanner is an all in one scanner/printer/card reader - I generally just scan direct to the SD card in the scanner and then read the contents of the card to the machine, as you would with any USB storage device.

That's not to say it doesn't work - I haven't actually ever tried scanning direct to the connected machine (Windows or Linux). It's a completely platform/driver/application independent solution!

The Swiss like their operating systems like their cheese -- Plenty of holes.

I know you're trying to be funny, but I'll put on my pedantic hat and remind everyone that Switzerland makes lots of cheeses, few of which contain holes.

What you're thinking of is that yellowish waxy product made in Wisconsin or California that vaguely resembles emmenthaler [wikipedia.org]. By contrast, appenzeller [wikipedia.org] and gruyere [wikipedia.org], for example, are similarly popular, and have no holes.

It appears to mean that "Linux doesn't support scanners" is the latest meme: I've seen it posted several times a day on Slashdot the past month or so. Someone further down this article has said the exact same thing. Not a single person making the claim has ever provided actual evidence, even when questioned, beyond "My scanner doesn't work". What scanner(s) do these people all own? Who knows...

OMG we should come with a version of Linux Monopoly! Instead of going to jail, you get fined for violating the GPL, and it instead of collecting $200 when passing Go, you can instead up the rev number of your sourceforge-hosted project up one notch.

As I understand it, glibc is what puts the GNU in GNU/Linux. (It's probably not Bash or Coreutils because those are part of MSYS on Windows.) So to appease Mr. Stallman, we could put glibc on the space formerly known as Park Place.

He's been promising an operating system called GNU, and Hurd is the name of its kernel. Since it's the canonical (but not the Canonical:D) version of GNU, it needn't be called GNU/Hurd.

Also, RMS suggests that you use a slash in "GNU/Linux" such that "GNU" isn't understood as an adjective. If the FSF made their own distro, it might be reasonable to call it "GNU Linux" to distinguish it from other distros (and since GNU is already in the name, calling it "GNU GNU/Linux" probably isn't necessary). Just lik

For anybody interested how this interacts with all the pro linux movements from the EU recently, well its completely orthogonal Switzerland is not a member of the EU.

Btw i believe the issue here is the lack of bidding process not that the contract went to Microsoft, like if all the contracts for costly wars in the midle east were given to a particular company without offering them up to any of the competition, good thing shit like that doesn't happen...oooh!

I'm just surprised that Governments so readily lets themselves be at the mercy of a foreign corporation. At the least, they could mandate open formats for when the propietary solution is better but giving them a later option to move to something else.

Like the USA, Switzerland is a federation, much smaller, but beautifully formed. The Kantons (18?) are the main source of power, not the federal government. And Direct Democracy means that the equivalent of Presedential signing is a referendum on legislation AFTER is is passed by the Bundesrat. Actually the referendum is negative, ie it vetos what the pols passed.

This is _why_ Switzerland is not in the EU, last time the pols tried it was thrown out by a 87% majority and that was the second asking so it wont come back for 30 years. Switzerland is in EFTA and has a bilateral treaty with the EU and is implementing the Shengen accord. Less strict frontier controls. If a question is decided at referendum it can normally be asked once again, but if voted down it is rude, and pointless to bring it back so pols cant saw, or piggy back the way they can in the US.

Many parts of Switzerland do use open source, The City of Zurich (Stadt Z&#252;rich) uses it extensively, as does Academia. Kanton Z&#252;rich provides tax preparation software free for Linux, Mac & M$Win.

Uhhh, prectically speaking, there may not be a LOT of difference between a federation and a republic. But, the US is not a federation. It IS a republic. Often touted to be a democratic republic, but a republic all the same. Member states do not enjoy the right to secede, nor do they enjoy any right of veto, or other useful tools that might block the republic's goals or actions.

Uhhh, prectically speaking, there may not be a LOT of difference between a federation and a republic. But, the US is not a federation. It IS a republic.

"Federation" and "republic" are completely orthogonal. You can have a federation that's not a republic (e.g. Grand Duchy of Lithuania), and you can have a republic that's not a federation (e.g. present-day France).

Member states do not enjoy the right to secede, nor do they enjoy any right of veto

None of those are required in a federation. All that's needed to qualify is self-governance for the constituent entities, with clearly defined limits which cannot be encroached upon by the central government. Thus, Canada, for example, is a federation; and U.S., most definitely so.

All that's needed to qualify is self-governance for the constituent entities, with clearly defined limits which cannot be encroached upon by the central government.

Which proves that the US is not a federation. c.f. Gonzales v Raich.

The US was intended to be a federation, but the states have been gradually weakened to the point that they have only whatever power the central government chooses to allow them, and not one bit more. The big turning point was the 16th and 17th amendments. The 16th gave the federal government the power of the purse and the 17th liberated it from state oversight.

I work for the canton of ZÃ¼rich, and I can tell you that getting a piece of OSS into the system is almost always a renegade act by a single sysadmin. In no way are we using OSS extensively. If you want to look at extensive OSS use, look at the canton of Solothurn, which has replaced all Windows-PCs and servers in public administration with ones running Linux.

ZÃ¼rich has a policy that states that OSS should be _considered_ on each round of software evaluations, but may only be used it it presents "no additional burden" to the user. Of course all of the senior admins, those who are in power, will find reasons to use their favorite Windows-based piece of software thanks to that clause. Anything else would simply be "an inconvenience to the user", and that's how you shoot down any attempt to introduce OSS.

I work in a part of gov't that is reasonably independent, but even we were forced by cantonal politics to replace our (perfectly working) Postfix + Courier installation with a (very buggy) Microsoft Exchange solution that takes THREE TIMES as much hardware to run. And I don't know how much more personnel is necessary, adding a fixed slice to our running costs.

Or do you have a list of where and what OSS is used in the canton? Would be interesting to see, as I've been trying to network with the responsible people for years, and all I get is screams of impotent rage from those who'd like to implement OSS and smug grins from those who oppose it.

Yes it is a direct democracy. This means we have two powers, apart from choosing our representatives:- The power to take up a referendum against a proposed law. This takes some 50'000 people to sign a paper saying so. If this suceeds, there will be a ballot where every citizen (from the age of 18 upwards) may vote for or against it.- The power to propose laws. This takes 100'000 people to back it. If that suceeds, there will again be a ballot.

The 26 cantons are not the main power. They have a lot to say in their respective area, like infrastructure or taxes, but they haven't too much to say when it comes to laws. Still, it's possible that one canton outlaws smoking in restaurants, where the others don't -- but it's just about impossible for a canton to lift the federal prohibition on drugs.

The voters from each canton send 2 representative to the "Ständerat", some kind like the US Senate (Upper House); and some more representatives, according to the population, to the Nationalrat (House of Commons). Both of these Houses need to ratify any proposed law. The Bundesrat (7 people) is the executive and is not directly chosen by the people, but by the Nationalrat and the Ständerat.

Anyway. This has just about nothing to do with the problem at hand. Which is that contrary to the rules, the Bundesverwaltung (administration; bureaucrats essentially) has given contracts to Microsoft without opening them for bids.

Especially since pro Linux movements in Europe are, also, largery a grassroots thing, so their members don't really care that much whether or not that particular group of pro Linux buddies / neighbouars reside in a country that's part of the EU or not...

This would be more analogous to suing someone who torrents under the excuse that nobody in town sells CDs any more - when it turns out the last CD shop closed because the same person was smashing the storefront windows and assaulting people trying to enter the store.

According to the article, there is not 'potential customer' here, just a 'STFU' from your friendly competitor who has a monopoly in the OS market who used that to force a monopoly in the word-processor market.

if they're forcing the population of switzerland to pay to support your competitor's business ideas, why would you not sue them to challenge that?

Seriously, I've been running Linux as my primary OS for a while now, and my work laptop is joined to Active Directory at work through Likewise Open. Even so, the integration is rudimentary at best, and every piece of software has its own little tweaks and settings. Single sign-on is a PAIN on Linux. Group policies don't exist. Peripheral compatibility is spotty, particularly with scanners. Multi-factor auth is a pain in the ass. Remote desktop (VNC) is really slow compared to RDP which makes VPN-from-home scenario painful.

Those are a few MUST HAVE things that work in Windows out of the box. RedHat should hire a few more engineers and get them cracking on those, before spending a ton of money on lawyers.

I do think that they could have supplied quite a bit on the server side, though. File serving, web serving, document sharing, DB - those things don't need Windows anymore.

Red Hat isn't arguing that Switzerland must put any specific set of requirements on the bidding process, only that there must actually be a bidding process with openly stated requirements. If "make it work with Active Directory" is one of the requirements, then it's up to Red Hat to include that in their bid. With contracts in the range of $10m+, there is plenty that Red Hat could custom-produce if it were needed to meet the bid's requirements.

"Work with Active Directory" is a vague notion in Linux. Technically, you can install Likewise Open and join your Linux machine to a domain within 15 minutes. But then you lose the ability to add your AD-authenticated user to local groups (!). You actually have to edit obscure text files by hand to do that, the usual tools simply do nothing. Editing those files incorrectly can lock you out of your machine. All other pieces of software are NOT GUARANTEED to pick up the config. Want to open an OpenOffice doc

Microsoft Works Tirelessly to make sure you have little glitches, by breaking every Open Standards it can get its grubby hands on, if you want examples look no further than the Kerberos extensions which they tried to NDA until MIT's lawyers pointed out that the extension was a derivative of copyright work and the laughable Excel ODF formula screw up.

Have you actually TRIED using X Window, even over broadband? I have. There are several drawbacks to it:1. It is VERY slow, slower than VNC. It runs like a snail compared to RDP.2. If you get disconnected, for whatever reason, your apps die and you lose data. In year 2009 this is UNACCEPTABLE.3. Did I mention it is VERY slow?

All things are corrected by using the proper network. As long as you confine yourself to the University Ethernet wired network you will not have these difficulties.

What? Oh, you aren't living and working at a University? Well, that's part of the problem. Much of this was designed and developed for use in a rather rarified atmosphere and trying to use it outside of that can be a real challenge. Ofen requiring the source code and a compiler. Sometimes debugger as well.

RDP is a tiresome solution to make you feel as if you are productive while wasting time. Yes I've used it and it's not as great as you make it sound. Depending on the version you're on you can lock yourself out if you don't log off your sessions.

On X, I would run the app remotely and display on my system if I really had to. Only had to do it once due to licensing issues. Wasn't slow just PITA like RDP.

Quite right, I absolutely agree it is totally unacceptable. Which is why X developers invented xmove many years ago.

Like you, I don't really have any problems with X (I've been using it for a very long time) and think it even has some advantages over RDP (for example, RDP requires you set a desktop resolution, then fit your session into that window. X, on the other hand, could care less and lets you just fit the application windows into your existing display.)

Two things for you:1. Try RDP first. I have successfully logged in and worked with a machine halfway across the globe connected with a 36.6kbps modem with RDP. Try that with X.2. Compression does not help a chatty protocol to become any less chatty and does not remove latency, which ruins everything for chatty protocols. There's a reason why people use VNC on Linux.

And BTW, xmove hasn't been updated since 1997. 12 years. Which means no one is using it.

Why is this. I have only ever been able to make X-windows work over private networks.

Not sure this is indicative, but I remember the old Vaxstation X-windows systems I used long ago tended to use UDP a bit too freely, and could have benefited by the use of TCP session connect protocol. I remember having looked into the protocols used in contrast to the Xerox 3150 (I think it was) large laser printer I was trying to integrate at the time. If I remember correctly (and there's no guarantee of that) the Xerox interpretation of certain standard protocols was not always the common interpretatio

Well it is only one department, at least one other department [zdnet.com] has a different approach. The Swiss Department of Public Instruction, which has the motto "Long Live Free Software" and is responsible for IT policy in Swiss schools, has encouraged Linux boots in the interests of leveling the playing field for students unable to afford new computers with the latest Microsoft software, a policy in place since late 2008.

The Swiss Department of Public Instruction, which has the motto "Long Live Free Software" and is responsible for IT policy in Swiss schools, has encouraged Linux boots in the interests of leveling the playing field for students unable to afford new computers with the latest Microsoft software, a policy in place since late 2008.

Do you realise you're talking about Switzerland, a country with one of the highest average incomes and standards of living in the world ? The price difference here between a PC wit

The word "building" in there makes me wonder whether this department might actually have some kind of legitimate need for CAD software or such, which tends to be under-represented on Linux (and Mac, for that matter).

There's no use debating how much the agency would save with an MS-alternative. Influential organizations like large corporations, universities, and government agencies will always get substantial discounts on Windows and Office license agreements. MS knows these entities have enormous leverage over their vendors' and customers' software choices. IE-only web sites, VBA applications, and Word forms make alternative software less attractive or even impossible to use.

I work for a large corporation that produces a lot of documents and applications our customers and vendors need to work with. MS worked out the pricing so that any other OS or office suite was a much greater capital expense on the balance sheet. They were even nice enough to provide free professional services to help us develop "solutions" that invariably locked customers and vendors into MS products.

Even so, from Switzerland's perspective that's an even better reason to squeeze Microsoft by having an open bidding process that drives the price down. Why pay them $15m when you could force them to discount?

I can believe some computer supplier got the contract to use Microsoft software. I would find it very difficult to believe that Microsoft got a contract for workstations (hardware) when that is clearly outside their business.

And I bet they do not have anyone that installs computers in Switzerland. Further, Microsoft partners in Switzerland would probably be rather concerned about being in competition with Microsoft for business.

Could there be any less accuracy in this summary? I didn't read the article,

Not Swiss!
It is a more flexible language spoken here.
Money law applies, actually.

Some 15 months ago Bill came In Athens - Greece, gave a lecture on innovation [Microsoft's vision on the future of technology] as he put it.

At the same time and roughly through the same procedure ( no public bidding process) a 70,000 win OS + office licenses agreement was signed, between Microsoft and the Greek Minster of Economy at that time, Mr Alogoskoufis.

The Red Hat group has asked a Swiss federal court to overturn a three-year contract issued to Microsoft by the Swiss Federal Bureau for Building and Logistics, to provide Windows desktops and applications, with support and maintenance, for 14 million Swiss Franc (Â£8 million) each year.

By your logic, if the goverment only had Ford motorcars then GM cars ain't an alternative since their operation is geared for Ford.

Doesn't fly my friend.

There are plenty of accurate analogies to explain this situation. Resorting instead to such a foolish and misleading one just makes all open source advocates look disingenuous and dishonest, when those are exactly (some of) the traits of Microsoft that we condemn.

By your logic, if the goverment only had Ford motorcars then GM cars ain't an alternative since their operation is geared for Ford.

Doesn't fly my friend.

Well, that's because your analogy is crap.

A better might be if they only had diesel cars, and had their own filling stations that only had tanks/pumps for diesel, and someone wants to sell them gasoline or compressed natural gas cars. But that doesn't really work since in that case it's the cars (what's being replaced) that are the "important" part, whereas really it's probably what isn't being replaced (the applications) that's the important part.

... could someone like RH claim that they could provide a solution that'd be 100%-compatible with the existing MS environment at a lower cost? I seriously doubt this would be the case.

Microsoft can't truthfully claim this, either. They certainly can't claim a lower cost than MS, but they can't even claim 100% compatibility, either.That doesn't stop them from making the claim, though...

it makes sense they'd go directly to MS rather than go through a public bidding process when they want to upgrade.

Many countries have laws that require a public bidding process when any governmental organization procures some good or service. You can't just ignore that when planning to make a large procurement, because that means that tax funds could be spent on a suboptimal solution.

Of course, that may happen anyway, but a public bidding process lowers that risk somewhat.

I would believe that if the cost of support wasn't thrown into the mix. Windows, Linux, and OSX all offer support services for their software. Part of what the summery was stating was the cost of that support. Red Hat offers such a service for a fee which any one doing the research into the bidding process for the OS's should know. This is why Red Hat is and should be upset they are being taken out of the running before they can even start. This is how they make their money off of their OS.

how do you know they were looking for support contracts? If you have trained IT staff, you won't really need to pay extra for support. So that would just leave the cost to license the software.

I think it's a foregone conclusion that support is included in the MS offering. Based on the terms presented in the story, it looks like an Enterprise Agreement, and these typically involve some level of support (not "we'll be your helpdesk" support, but rather somewhere for your IT people to turn... to be fair, this